Millions of shoes and other apparel articles are discarded every year. These shoes and other apparel articles contain materials that, if successful recovered, may be re-used or re-purposed. The recovery of these materials is important to reducing post-consumer waste as well as maximizing the usefulness of the materials fabricated for the production of the apparel articles. Methods exist for separating polymeric materials from metallic, glass, and plastic materials; however, apparel articles typically comprise multiple polymer components that must be separated and classified in order to maximize recycling options for these components.